Feminist
Four More Shots Please! moves in the right direction when it comes to women (of a particular social stratum), their lives, and feminism at large – even if it takes small, stumbling, baby steps towards it.
Why is it always so hard to find a place for intimacy and why do we have to lie and cheat our way into getting it? Everything related to non-committal sex was always so taboo, shrouded in secrecy, and eliciting raised eyebrows, that it turned me off.
Sexuality is taboo in our context, and expressions of it publicly or even in the home setting outside the bedroom, especially by those who are not in ‘legitimate’ relationships ‘alarm the modesty’ and are generally considered anti-culture or simply categorised as Western concepts.
Fiction is a realm within which we can imagine the limitlessness of our feminist realities. By censoring fiction itself in an anxiety to perform what we understand as feminism, is to censor our imaginations, its subtle negotiations with reality and its potential in generating desires and dreams we hardly knew of. Does this mean we don’t critique books and movies? Definitely not! Critique is fun. Critique is important. Critique is how we grow. But the judgement needs to stop.
Alankrita Shrivastava made her directorial debut with the film ‘Turning 30!!!’ (2011) and has been committed to telling stories about women from a woman’s perspective. Her second and most recent film ‘Lipstick Under My Burkha’ (2016) has received international recognition and is slated to release in India in early 2017.
“I don’t always remember that I’m nearing thirty. On an average day the thought that I have a ticking time-bomb…